User talk:Arcticocean/Archive 2019

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

I am not sure I understand what you mean in the closing statement [1], I must be missing something. The alert was given on 20 February and not by me. All other diffs are later. After I suggested that the user should not edit articles related to Ukrainian topics they first kept to talk pages, but then they started editing articles, and this is why I filed the AE request.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

After editing thousands articles since the first days of Wikipedia, I was a bit non-plussed after running into my first aggressive political censorship attempts by Ukrainian activists in the Crimean article. I was only interested in the bridge structure, not the politics. Even on the Talk pages, where the edit supporters outnumbered the Ukrainian Activists, the activists can actually succeed in controlling the article. I had not seen this before in Wikipedia, and I'm still amazed that the activists can create fictitious content. Now I need to find out the limits of the censorship ban. Are you able to direct me to discussion on the limits of a "topic ban, broadly interpreted"? In other words, how to edit without unleashing partisan censorship? Santamoly (talk) 01:12, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Hello AGK: You had me indefinitely topic banned from eastern europe and not sure how this type of ban works. Are you able to explain? I found this template on the appeal page, but I'm not sure how to use it and the instructions aren't clear:

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
==Arbitration enforcement action appeal by <Username>== <small>''Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found [[Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Enforcement|here]]. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.''</small> <p><small>''To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see [[WP:UNINVOLVED]]).''</small></p> ; Appealing user : {{userlinks|<Username>}} – [[User:Santamoly|Santamoly]] ([[User talk:Santamoly|talk]]) 07:19, 22 September 2018 (UTC) ; Sanction being appealed : <Text> ; Administrator imposing the sanction : {{admin|<Username>}} ; Notification of that administrator : ''The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a [[WP:DIFF|diff]] of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification.'' ===Statement by <Username>=== <Your text> ===Statement by <Username>=== ===Statement by (involved editor 1)=== ===Statement by (involved editor 2)=== ===Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by <Username> === ===Result of the appeal by <Username>=== :''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.'' <!-- When closing this request (once there is a consensus) use {{hat|Result}} / {{hab}} if at AE, or an archive/discussion box template if on AN, inform the user on their talk page and note it in the discretionary sanctions log below where their sanctions is logged. --> *

My question is: where do I submit the questions or appeal regarding the topic ban? The ban is quite vague and large (it appears to be a ban on editing anything to do with half the world!) Any suggestions gratgefully feceived, Thanks, Santamoly Santamoly (talk) 07:19, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Hello AGK. Your warning to ContentEditman might be logged in

) 18:47, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: I didn't log because I suppose it is not an enforcement action. Warnings about conduct on the noticeboard itself are a meta or housekeeping matter, whereas DSLOG is for matters relating to arbitration decisions. To quote the log's preface (emphasis mine):

This is the central log for all sanctions issued pursuant to an Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions remedy

What do you think? Perhaps we ought to create a section at the end ("Noticeboard matters") or a separate log, sitting alongside those for each calendar year. I agree that these things need to be easily found by future closers, and do not want to seem like I am asking

 ■

19:43, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

@

 ■

17:40, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Noticed your warning, and I agree. The wording of

WP:AC/DS is quite broad, and you might think that a warning about misuse of AE is one of the things that an admin might do, to help fix a situation in one of the contested areas. ("..any sanction, restriction, or other remedy placed under this procedure".) Though it is funny to think of a warning as a 'sanction'. Perhaps some day the committee might tweak the wording to make it sound more natural. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk

) 17:51, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Appeal to the topic ban with reason

Hello. I was recently topic banned after an AE sanction was applied on me. I wish to request that this sanction be overturned because I acted in all good faith. There might have been issues in the past that some of you think are not a good way to edit but when the editor gave me a notification that the topic area was under sanctions, on my talk page. I did take notice of it and did proceed with even more caution. This can be better understood from the fact that I also added a talk page comment. I did not repeatedly recreate it. Infact, I first had a discussion with the editor. You can see my talk page comment on the creation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Khafd

Infact, long before creating the page, I started a talk page discussion on that page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Khafd&oldid=828993431

It was reverted by User:SlimVirgin and the talk page turned into a redirect. My comment wasn't moved as far as I remember. Infact I was told that I should go and comment on the main topic's talk page. I asked for a self revert which wasn't made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Muffizainu#Discretionary_sanctions_alert ... I did not create a disturbance over breaking of these rules of editing out others' comments and and went ahead to add the the talk page discussion to the page asked again ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Religious_views_on_female_genital_mutilation&diff=prev&oldid=829409243 ).

Now if you look at the Khafd comment, it got archived, no one objected or cared (to me it appeared that I was only being filibustered, but I followed rules): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Religious_views_on_female_genital_mutilation/Archive_2

So you can see that I created the Khafd article in all good faith and would have been more than happy to follow wikipedia rules and discuss if some one choose to take this article to AFD ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Khafd ) as I clearly said. If some one felt I was in the wrong, I would totally respect consensus. But - instead of getting consensus, an AE sanction was requested. Then, instead of AFD, the article was redirected back in a revert: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khafd&action=history - it is wrong ot by pass consensus and due process by getting the opposing editor sanctioned and then reverting the article single handedly. Given that I was not banned while the article was created, it should still have been taken to AFD instead of a revert. I hope that shows you atleast a bit that there's been some presumptuous behaviour and not fair discussion.

I'm certain that you agree that it is not right to get your opponents blocked/banned than to discuss. If they were finding it difficult to discuss with me alone, they could have simple started an AFD.

As you were the blocking admin, I respect your standing and am bringing this issue to you before I take this to

) 11:40, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

First, ping

 ■

17:52, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

@

AGK

: I completely understand. And if editors disagreed, I would completely abide by consensus. I'm only saying that it is not right for admins to enforce content as editors are supposed to enforce content, admins are only supposed to keep editors in line. I or another editor should at least have the right to create an article (or make an edit) and have it rejected by another set of editors before it is even though to be disruptive. This is especially with the fact that I'm ready to accept any consensus. But is it right not to let an editor even seek consensus, by the way of sanction?

I hope that has some logic and you would allow me to recreate the article (and go through an AFD if you wish), by lifting the sanction at least temporarily. If not, I will have to request at

WP:AN, but I do feel you should entertain a reasonable request? Muffizainu (talk

) 07:41, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

@Muffizainu: No, sorry: I deny that request to be temporarily exempted from the sanction and I deny the broader appeal.

If you post at AN, it must be solely to

further appeal sanctions in the prescribed way

. You may not argue your views on the underlying real-life issues under the auspices of an administrative discussion. You may not seek an editorial consensus in support of your preferred viewpoint.

Finally, I am going to remind you one last time, because what I just said doesn't seem to have fully landed. Whether or not you are accepting of consensus is irrelevant. Wikipedia does not conceive of a consensus that excuses the selective use of sourcing to manipulate the neutrality of articles. That you would think to look for one rather illustrates the type of misconduct that resulted in enforcement action.

 ■

10:22, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

AGK, I have mentioned the ban of Muffizainu in this thread at AN, where another editor is asking to have his own FGM ban lifted. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 18:06, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello AGK,

If you're going to use

) 11:08, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

@

 ■

13:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

It breaks

syntax coloring, which is helpful, when it works. I didn't know about Sanitizer; if that really works, then based on the timestamp of your change, and when I posted the comment above, perhaps I just didn't wait long enough. Same thing with "<br>" (should be: "<br />"). Either way though, nbd. Mathglot (talk

) 10:16, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

R. Crawford article deletion

Hi AGK -

I wanted to reach out and explain the backstory to the 2018 Rah Crawford wikipedia creation - I would like to post this on the record related to this article, but the deletion discussion / history has been closed. If you could direct me to the best way to post it, I would appreciate it!

Here's the back story. This user account WO1977 has had 2 editors using it (I reached out to editors because I have little wiki experience).

1st Editor -Hired an editor to create bio for Rah Crawford. -User WO1977 was created. -We worked with this editor June 21, 2017 - September 28, 2017 -The editor wrote a bio and submitted the bio to Art History Archive and Wikipedia in June/July of 2017. -When the article in Wikipedia was flagged for plagiarism because of the art history archive entry we mentioned that it was the same author, but also made some updates to the Wikipedia entry so as to not look like an article on Wikipedia was plagiarized. -This was the first article that this editor created for Wikipedia.

2nd Editor -Over 6 months passed, a new editor reached out to us via email saying that they could update the article so it would meet Wikipedia guidelines. -The second editor worked through April 26, 2018 - September 18, 2018 -This editor asked to use the user WO1977 for the changes and updates. -The editor made changes and updates, and unfortunately it seems the methods in which the editor used to try to get the article accepted were not in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines.

Now, the article has since been deleted, and has a creation protection on it.

I've learned a lot through this process, and have only responded until now because I was working on the latest project with Rah Crawford. A film that was created about his new art period was accepted into an international film festival.

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).https://www.bushwickfilmfestival.com/11th-annual-bushwick-film-festival/2018/9/12/blockchain-and-sharing-the-financial-load-for-your-passion-projectCite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).https://thecreativecrypto.com/showing-of-neo-now-bushwick-film-festival-nyc/Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

The deletion discussion seemed to be very heated (but some said it met the notability guidelines) so I wanted to respond on behalf of Rah Crawford's team, we wanted to note the things that have happened in his 14 year art career and community engagement.

AGK - If you have any advice on going forward, or where or who it would make sense to direct these comments too - I would appreciate it!

This talk page meets the talk page guidelines to the best of my knowledge, my apologies if I missed a step.

Michelle WO1977 (talk) 18:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Awesome

Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:31, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I thought you were extremely fast in closing the request against Onceinawhile here, less than 2 hours after it was opened. As I stated here, I started this mess, which led to this rule...and I am not happy about the result, at all. The IP area is difficult, we all know, but it is not getting better by having rules most of us simply don't understand. It is not getting better being banned (or topic banned) under these Byzantine rules, Huldra (talk) 22:13, 2 November 2018 (UTC) There are methods of writing a Wikipedia article that do not involve every sentence being furiously upended by a dozen users in quick succession. I suppose that restrictions on the frequency of reverts are less dangerous and cumbersome to users whose "go-to" is not reverting…  ■ 22:26, 2 November 2018 (UTC) Your reply is about as clear to me as the rules in the IP area. IE, clear ...as ink, Huldra (talk) 22:36, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand how I can be blamed for something that happened after I edited? Above you explained your decision writing "every sentence being furiously upended by a dozen users in quick succession". On the AE you explained in a similar way: "Enclave law was in the throes of an edit war. Onceinawhile contributed to disruption of this article when they reverted." These descriptions are incorrect representations of the situation when I edited the article.

I last edited the article on 29 Oct. Then Icewhiz edited on 2 Nov, then I reverted. No-one else had edited. There was no edit war.

I am not and have never been an edit warrior. Whenever I see one I run a mile, because I know what discretionary sanctions are like.

Please could you kindly clarify what you think I personally did wrong?

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:41, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi,

 ■

22:48, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi AGK. At the AE you wrote "I accept Onceinawhile's submission that, wrongly, they did not think ARBPIA § General 1RR Restriction is counted from the most recent revert". I read that to mean that we both accepted that that was an inadvertent error, regarding a rule that I had not been notified of. From your closing statement it didn't feel like this was what I was being punished for.

I took another cold look at the events. I understood it as simply

WP:BRD

. A big bold set of edits, followed by a single revert, followed by a discussion. Of course sometimes bold edits in BRD can be considered to also be reverts; that inherent subjectivity is exactly why the "one revert per editor per article per 24-hour period" needs to exist. In this case, the bold edit was a major undiscussed change to the scope of the article (it literally changed the entire topic of the article to make it about terminology not about a legal concept), and came after a period of many days of stability and article building, so by no means a classic revert. Either way, throughout my 8.5 years here I have seen and heard that BRD, with the 24 hour-per-editor rule, represents normal course. I behaved exactly as I have always seen and heard is acceptable.

I park my car in the same parking spot every day. If next week the local authorities subtly tweaked the wording of the parking regulations, and didn't make the change clear or notify me, I would go ahead and park there again. If I got a parking ticket, I would appeal it. But if I was instead banned from driving for three months?

Separately, to illustrate what kind of editor I am, please see the only two other posts on my talk page today. It started as a good Wikipedia day for me this morning. I hope that my long history of hard work, diligence and good citizenship here can count for something.

One final note. I don't feel great about taking your time asking to you to look at it all over again, as you are volunteering to spend your free time working to keep our project administration functioning and as individual editors we should be making your life easier not harder. If you agree to spend the time to take another look, and I can do anything to balance the effort, I will.

Onceinawhile (talk) 00:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound cold, but none of what you're saying makes a difference. Editing that article means you are required to pare back Bold – Revert – Discuss. This happens to almost no other Wikipedia articles. You breached that requirement and have been excluded from the topic for a time. Any other editor who breaches the requirement will be excluded too, in their turn. As a community, we tolerate firmer standards on these articles because topic areas like PIA are charged and unpleasant. Thank you for your comments, but I don't think letting you back into this article would be the right outcome.

 ■

14:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok. You have made your decision. I am not clear which specific requirement you are talking about (your first post above referred to the entire revert restriction regime, which includes many sub-rules), as we have talked loosely about a few. You have stated that your decision was not related to the discretionary sanctions regime. Please could you clarify two questions: (1) is the ban only because I breached the “original author” 24-hour-from-revert rule? (2) if the answer to 1 is no, which specific other part of rule do you consider I breached?

I would appreciate if you could do me the courtesy of being precise about this, so we can all move on. I need to assess how I feel about this, but I can’t do that without a very clear understanding of your decision. I appreciate it must be irritating having editors who you have enforced sanctions against come and take up your time here. As I said above, if I can mitigate this I will. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

While awaiting your response, I found a sentence under Community Sanctions at

WP:GS

which states: “Administrators may not impose sanctions unless an editor has previously been made aware of the existence of these sanctions.”

In your closing statement you explicitly accepted that I was not aware. To say more clearly what I have been making a meal of above, I am 100% certain that I did not breach any rule except the single new one that I was not aware of.

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:16, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

It is distressing to see one of the best editors in the IP area, who wrote this article almost single-handedly, being hit with a severe penalty. Now the tag-team who started deleting everything on the non-policy excuse that sources must contain the exact words that appear in the article title (rather than merely being about the same subject) can proceed to destroy it without opposition. None of this is to the benefit of the encyclopedia. Concerning the obligation of editors to know the rules, it is unarguable but you should know that you (AGK) got the rule wrong too. It does not say that the General 1RR restriction "is counted from the most recent revert", but rather from "the first revert made to their edit". Oncenawhile indeed violated the real rule in this case, but the fact that his confusion derived from the unwise assumption that the rules make good sense calls for leniency in my opinion. Zero^talk 02:36, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

You are quite welcome to use my page to talk until you're blue in the face. I don't mind. But it would be more useful to read about this tag-team in an enforcement request. If you do not submit a request, I shall need to presume that much of your description is exaggerated.

 ■

14:42, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

The user was well aware of more stricter version of the prohibitions see their post "gain_consensus"_ARBPIA_requirement_working?(which was amended latter).But he didn't abide to the current version that less stricter .If we assume that he forgot about the sanctions then are probably some

) 07:31, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that was a long time ago, and because the discussion to unwind that sanction was posted just three days after my post by Huldra on the same page (at WP:IPCOLL, which I have on my watchlist), I also knew of (and was involved in, from memory) its quick demise.

There is a reason for my username - I only edit once in a while (or at least I try to). Which is why it’s not practical to spend my time searching byzantine ARCA pages every time to ensure I am aware of new rules. To use my parking analogy above, drivers are not expected to search the parking regulations rulebook every time they take the car for a spin. Changes to parking regulations are usually publicized in an obvious way. The fact that changes are not publicized clearly here is presumably why the awareness requirement exists.

Two other points for reflection. I personally built the table at

Wikipedia:A/I/PIA

a few months ago. I have now added this to my watchlist. I would also suggest that the table at ARBPIAINTRO is replaced by a link to this new page. And perhaps we could all agree that any changes to ARBPIA going forward are publicized and explained clearly at the three wikiproject noticeboards (Israel, Palestine, and IPCOLL).

Onceinawhile (talk) 08:48, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

@Shrike: I just realized that you are the 17th most active user of WP:AE, ever, including the admins who work there, and have the highest AE-to-overall edit ratio (1 in 30 of your entire edit history has been at AE). You have made almost six times as many contributions to AE than you have to your most edited article. You might consider, going forward, using that great interest and dedication to help the community understand the evolving ARBPIA rules. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:37, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

There are three points to be made.

1. The rule is extremely confusing, and nobody (not even admins) understands it. Several admins at AE have said so explicitly. Also see this entire AE request, where everybody, including Shrike, shows that they don't understand the rule. Not to toot my own horn, but I was the only one who had the correct interpretation. It is unclear to me that AGK even knows how confusing this rule is and how it has been treated at AE, since I don't recall them ever weighing in on a dispute on this rule.
2. Onceinawhile stated explicitly that they would be happy to self-revert. It is very common for people to break 1RR by mistake. I have done so many times. Here is one of many examples.
3. AGK decided (based on what criteria, it isn't clear), that a single infraction of this unclear rule deserves a three-month topic ban. How did AGK get to this conclusion? Do they hand out 3-month topic bans for isolated 3RR violations on the edit-warring noticeboard? Perhaps all the work Onceinawhile put in to get Balfour Declaration to FA clearly shows to AGK that the former isn't qualified to edit in this area. That was sarcasm. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Kingsindian, thank you for your support. On your second point, how frequent it is to accidentally cross the 1RR rule, and how most editors allow opposing editors a chance to recant before running to WP:AE, I have been discussing with another editor the merits of a proposed amendment to the ARBPIA rules (for 1RR only) along the lines of “Administrators may not impose 1RR sanctions if an editor was not given a warning about the violation 24 hours prior to the AE submission”. If the AE is still filed after the wait period, the behavior of the editor during that 24 hour period can be used to assess if the editor was being disruptive or just made a single mistake. The idea is to introduce a safety valve to reduce the burden on WP:AE, create a more positive editing environment, and remove the structural advantage that aggressive editors currently have over collegiate editors.

On your third point, I would note that the strength of the ban is lighter than all of AGK's four other AE bans this year (his last AE ban prior to that was back in 2011). Also

WP:BLOCK

is shorter of course.

Where I feel aggrieved is that

WP:TBAN

states that "The purpose of a topic ban is to forbid editors from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive." AGK is therefore interpreting the word "disruptive" in this context to apply to technical / accidental oversights, which I doubt it was intended for. But this is not clarified in the policy, so I imagine admins are free to interpret in whichever way they choose.

I would like AGK to reconsider the sanction on the basis of his prior acceptance that I was unaware of the rule, per

WP:GS (“Administrators may not impose sanctions unless an editor has previously been made aware of the existence of these sanctions.”) Onceinawhile (talk

) 09:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: I should explain that my gap in AE actions is because I sat on the committee itself between 2012 and 2016. After leaving the committee, I took a short wikibreak.

You have made two submissions to me:

1. WP:GS
   states that you need to have prior awareness of 1RR or another general restriction. You were not aware of ARBPIA 1RR, and my topic ban was therefore procedurally improper.
2. You are a productive editor who made one revert more than they should have. I should consider leniency.

On the first point, your quotation from

.

On the second point, I would again explain that these restrictions exist because we – plural, Wikipedia, its community, whatever – have decided the usual approach to collaborative editing (Bold – Revert – Discuss) is not working. Reverting more than once in a short period is therefore ipso facto disruptive, for any pages in the topic. Any impartial observer would agree with both these policies, particularly having watched Wikipedia open multiple arbitration cases about the Arab–Israeli conflict. I agree. And I do not accept that permitting you back onto

or any related article would be helpful, because I know from experience that these topic areas can only come close, in the long run, to becoming stable and controlled only if we consistently act to quickly exclude any editor who fails to edit cautiously (ie who breaches 1RR or another restriction on Bold – Revert – Discuss).

I am not usually asked to explain the theory behind why general restrictions exist, but I hope this gives some insight into your own case. I hope it is clear that I have not mindlessly slammed down a hammer on you. I do appreciate the courteous way you have phrased your comments here and elsewhere. But, I am sorry – I deny your appeal to me.

13:53, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

OK, thank you for the explanation. I have accepted that you are not going to change your mind. So why am I posting another wall of text here? Because having reflected on your last post, I am now worried about the bigger picture. You voluntarily serve our community in a very significant way, you are a highly respected part of the Wikipedia system, and you are nothing if not consistent. And yet your good faith theory is going to damage this encyclopedia which we both care deeply about.

You might think who the hell am I to suggest that. We may both be veterans, but your rank is higher than mine; I am just a foot soldier fighting for our encyclopaedia on the front lines of one of our two most contested battlegrounds. I don’t see anywhere near as many Arb cases as you have done. I just see what happens in the trenches (please forgive the WWI references - it’s almost the centenary...)

I am worried because the project-wide enforcement approach you are advocating here is extreme. This extremity is also visible in practice. For all your comments above about community consensus when discussing my case, there is in fact no consensus on enforcement of this particular sub-rule. You have set a new precedent. This new and unusual rule was implemented earlier this year. Since then it has come to AE nine times, of which most resulted in no action, one came together with other issues and had a 72 hour block, and two (both yours) had 12 month and 3 month topic bans (the latter being mine). You’ll see that what you termed “disruption” in my case is referred to by some other admins as “accidental oversight” or similar:

• 6 no actions: “Apparent honest mistake, immediately corrected. No action necessary.”; “GHcool is urged to be more careful next time. No further action is deemed necessary at this time.”; “No action.”; “Rafe87 has now been notified properly of discretionary sanctions and the assumption is that they fully understand the editing restrictions and behavioral expectations involved in the are”; “No action.”; “E-960 needs to be more careful when reverting”
• 1 block: [2]: 72 hour block, albeit had multiple reverts and admitted counting hours
• AGK topic bans: 1 year and mine for 3 months

Moving back to the bigger picture, you stated that the purpose of your zero-tolerance approach was to “come close, in the long run, to becoming stable and controlled”. This goal is important but is not stated anywhere in

WP:AIM

. Your extreme approach will achieve the goal you set out, but to the detriment of Wikipedia’s overall purpose. A more balanced approach will help achieve both.

When considering how we will achieve our WP:AIM in Wikipedia’s battleground areas, the most important “typology” of the editors who work on these topics is not pro-Israel vs pro-Palestinian, or Republicans vs Democrats. It is “collegiate editors” (those who wish to collaborate with those who hold opposing views) vs “battleground editors” (those who wish to fight against opposing views).

In these contested areas, our project’s success in the long term is reliant on ensuring the “collegiate editors” are able to get on with the job. The ability for people from opposing sides to collaborate here is what makes this project so valuable and so unique (see e.g.

WP:IPCOLL

, which I rewrote most of a few years ago).

On the other hand, some “battleground editors” have become specialists, rarely building anything, but instead walking the line carefully, pushing and prodding well-meaning editors until someone loses their cool, trips over a bright line, or frankly gives up from sheer exhaustion. They also enjoy the game of “admin roulette”, throwing up an AE or ANI and hoping they strike lucky.

There is lots of research stating that zero tolerance policies in general are counterproductive in the long run (our own article states “little evidence supports [its] claimed effectiveness”). In our world, zero tolerance on these matters advantages the “battleground editors” against the “collegiate editors”.

I continue to believe in the project, unlike too many others before me who have been hit with the iron fist, precisely because of these types of reasoned discussions. I failed to convince you about my own personal case, but there is still a chance to convince you to notice that your are unwittingly favoring those who game the system over those who build the encyclopedia.

PS - one small comment on my specific case. I can’t help but notice that, whilst I am 90% certain you are very clear in your mind about the case, all four of your posts on this question (including the AE close) incorrectly describe my actual infraction. In your most recent post you wrote “one revert more than they should have” and “reverting more than once in a short period”, when I made just one revert in total. I know this is academic now, but I had hoped at some point your rationale would be stated in a post which also describes accurately what I actually did. Maybe it’s cathartic more than anything else.

Onceinawhile (talk) 01:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi there. In case you weren't aware, Onceinawhile regularly reports other editors to AE for the most trivial procedural errors without a customary warning. He uses AE as a tool to get rid of his ideological opponents. He is a classic civil POV pusher and the whole wall of text above is an attempt to manipulate. FYI. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:45, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

There is nothing technical about no “attempt to establish consensus” and ”keep on reverting many different editors” (both admin quotes). As to the use of “regularly” in your post, I am unaware of a single other AE I made in the last few years. If you are, please let us know. Note that you have three times more edits to AE than me.

Either way, I note the regularity of your contributions here has gone down. I hope you come back properly soon.

Sorry to AGK for having this conversation here.

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Did you give warnings before submitting those AE requests? Are you now claiming all over the place that not giving a warning is unfair? QED. If AGK is interested he can check if those were trivial things or not, or if you were "pushing and prodding well-meaning editors until someone loses their cool, trips over a bright line, or frankly gives up from sheer exhaustion" (without warning before running to the admins). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 03:53, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:08, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
• A
  proposed deletion policy
  (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
• A
  today's featured article
  (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news

• local talk page or on Meta
  . A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
• A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
• The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
• The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-enwikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

---

Congratulations on getting the the CU bit back! -- Luk ^talk 13:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@

 ■

13:26, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Hey. I noticed the page for TheOdd1sOut was deleted. I was just wondering why. Can you give me a reason why the page was put up for deletion in the first place? Parttime18 (talk) 20:52, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@

 ■

23:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Here Shrike says that it is a topic ban violation to comment on

) 21:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@

 ■

21:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, Huldra (talk) 21:24, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi AGK, hope you're well. Just wanted to pop by and wave, as I recently popped into Wikipedia and saw you active again - which I'm very pleased about :-). Hope to see you around old friend :)

23:49, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

P.S. If MedCom is indeed closed, would love to work with you on DR ideas going forward as DRN may not be robust enough to deal with all disputes IMO.

Steven Crossin

23:49, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

 ■

10:10, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom Timeliness

While I agree with the spirit of your answer to Collect about adequate time, I want to point out that there is a cost to editors (and thus the project) in having cases drag on beyond their deadlines. I believe this was most recently noted by both arbitrators and participants in the German war effort case. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Barkeep49. I think my answer is the best approach, both in theory and with respect to timeliness.

There is a cost if cases drag on significantly past deadline or in a way that delays the draft decision. Neither happened in the hypothetical case within the Election question. Often, a couple of days is less significant where (as in this case) the proceedings are moving from Evidence into Proposed Decision. This is because, in most cases, an arbitrator will not begin drafting the final decision until Evidence closes – and a number of days are scheduled in which to do so. Therefore, the specific impact of the extension would be to give the drafting arbitrator fewer days before the draft decision was due to be published. In other words, editors should not overall see a delay – merely a shifting of the interim deadlines.

Nb. the Election question did not name a specific case, and my answer is not an evaluation of any specific delays that occurred during

 ■

16:56, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure I disagree with any of what you just wrote (and know you were speaking in the abstract), but rather than give a different hypothetical showing the cost of cases dragging out, rather than the benefit, I thought I would just directly say it here with an example. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Hey, I noticed that you made this edit [3] today with the edit summary "per clerks". I was wondering:

1. What do you mean by "per clerks"? Is there a clerk discussion somewhere where that change was proposed? Could you point me to it?
2. I'm wanting to make a similar change to a similar (actually nearly identical) template. See Template_talk:American_politics_AE#Add_parameters_for_optional_individual_sanctions. Might you be willing to help me out with that?

It was only after I made that proposal that I realized you had only just made the change to the other template. ~Awilley (talk) 21:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

) 04:58, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Arbcom, really?

Hello again old friend. Just saw this. Are you sure? I mean, I know you'd be good at it no doubt, but, well, I wish you good luck my friend :) Glutton for punishment, hehe.

06:02, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Your essay on functus officio

Hi there. This essay is very misleading. The term does not mean that there is nothing more for an officeholder/body to do, so they can be made redundant/dissolved. It means that as regards a particular decision, having exercised his/her/its powers there is nothing more he/she/it can do (that's what appeal courts are for). Also, when a matter is dealt with in someone's absence the term is in absentia. In abstentia, if it means anything, means something different. Best wishes with your candidacy. 82.69.5.58 (talk) 12:12, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

That's one use of the term; the essay uses the

 ■

19:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

19:22, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Mediation Committee has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 20:09, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

What is the purpose of Category:Wikipedia functionary statistics? Is it a category page, in which case it doesn't need all of the text at the top, and definitely should not be placed inside itself. Or is it documentation for a template, in which case it belongs in Template: space as a /doc subpage. Perhaps it's a how-to guide, in which case it should be either in Help: or Wikipedia: space. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:16, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi

 ■

18:17, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I added |tracking=yes so that the page is not uncategorised. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Template:FTMCR has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:40, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I'm just looking through our oldest unblock requests, and I'm wondering if you've made any progress with the one at User talk:Pentaquark that you have on hold? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:44, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@

 ■

17:30, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, OK, thanks. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I've already closed my question section on your Q page, but I need some clarity regarding your response here: "The use of biased sourcing and other verifiability problems is the other problem." Considering

01:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Some are so biased or questionable

 ■

10:18, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration CA notice

You are involved in a recently-filed request for clarification or amendment from the Arbitration Committee. Please review the request at

Wikipedia:Arbitration guide

may be of use.

Thanks, petrarchan47คุก 07:27, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi AGK. I've just been patrolling old unblock requests, and it looks like you've got three on hold that may need you to re-review them - the relevant talkpages are User talk:Herald 2005, User talk:Orangemessi and User talk:Pentaquark. If you'd rather not deal with 'em, let me know and I'll close them off. Yunshui ^雲_水 15:18, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

 ■

19:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi AGK, the Genetically modified organisms arbitration clarification request, which you were listed as a party to, has been archived to Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically modified organisms#Clarification request: Genetically modified organisms (November 2018). For the Arbitration Committee, --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 06:40, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Can you move

) 17:59, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

 ■

18:09, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

Have a very happy birthday on your special day!
Best wishes, A 10 fireplane (talk) 15:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

A 10 fireplane (talk) 15:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Happy Birthday! KCVelaga (talk) 17:32, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi ::@

) 10:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC))

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018).

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
• A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
• A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

• Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
• To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
• Since deployment of
  Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here
  .

Arbitration

• Voting in the
  2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page
  .

Miscellaneous

• In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
• Wikipedia policy
  two-factor authentication. A committed identity
  can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries

• Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

---

16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Guild of Copy Editors December 2018 Newsletter Hello and welcome to the December 2018 GOCE newsletter. Here is what's been happening since the August edition. Thanks to everyone who participated in the Requests and the oldest backlog month. Of the twenty editors who signed up, eleven editors recorded 37 copy edits. For the September drive (results), of the twenty-three people who signed up, nineteen editors completed 294 copy edits. Our October blitz (results) focused on Requests, geography, and food and drink articles. Of the fourteen people who signed up, eleven recorded a total of 57 copy edits. For the November drive (results), twenty-two people signed up, and eighteen editors recorded 273 copy edits. This helped to bring the backlog to a six-month low of 825 articles. The December blitz will run for one week, from 16 to 22 December. Sign up now! Elections: Nominations for the Guild's coordinators for the first half of 2019 will be open from 1 to 15 December. Voting will then take place and the election will close on 31 December at 23:59 UTC. Positions for Guild coordinators, who perform the important behind-the-scenes tasks that keep our project running smoothly, are open to all Wikipedians in good standing. We welcome self-nominations, so please consider nominating yourself if you've ever thought about helping out; it's your Guild and it doesn't run itself! Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators; Reidgreg, Baffle gab1978, Jonesey95, Miniapolis and Tdslk. >>> Sign up for the December blitz! <<< >>> Participate in the Coordinator elections! <<< To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

The "rule" is that you are not supposed to archive reports that you've closed. At Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Chuckcanton you skipped closing and went directly to archiving. The procedural rule exists to allow another member of the SPI team to double-check the closer's work and to make sure there was nothing else that needed doing. Disclaimer: I've broken the rule but only in exceptional circumstances.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• I knew what the rule is.
   ■
  17:04, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi AGK. Congratulations on your success in the elections and welcome to the 2019 Arbitration Committee. Sorry to be a pain, but we'll need to go through the formalities.

Please use the EmailUser function to indicate:

• the email address you'd like to use for ArbCom and functionary business, and
• if you wish to assigned oversight for your term.

Over the coming days, you will receive a small of emails as part of the induction process. Please carefully read them. If they are registration emails, please follow any instructions in them to finalise registration. You can contact me or any other arbitrator directly if you have difficulty with any of these formalities.

Thank you for volunteering to serve on the committee. We very much look forward to introducing ourselves to you on the mailing list and to working with you this term.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Worm^TT(talk) 10:51, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• Congratulations on winning your re-election. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:11, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
• Welcome back to ArbCom, AGK! Your email account is no longer your own. ;-) Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

•  ■
  21:00, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much! You may wish to trim Red Deer Curling Classic and Jamie Koe articles as well. 96.55.104.236 (talk) 00:27, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).

Guideline and policy news

• There are a number of new or changed
  WP:CSD#G6
  :

1. db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages
   .
2. db-redircom
   }}; the text is unchanged.
3. db-blankdraft
   }}.

• The Wikimedia Foundation
  two-factor authentication
  .
• Members of the
  Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement
  . After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news

• Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:

1. At least 8 characters in length
2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
3. Different from their username

User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.

• Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
• {{
  RevDel
  checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

• Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.

Miscellaneous

• Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
• Around 22% of admins have enabled
  doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure
  and unique to Wikimedia.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Crouch, Swale

That is a very, very fine piece of work you did there. In the finest traditions of the project. Guy (Help!) 22:25, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks

 ■

12:33, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Please recuse from the GiantSnowman arbcom case

I have made my misgivings about your objectivity clear at the case talk page, but of course I'm not an objective bystander either. However, serious similar concerns have been raised by User:Kcowolf ("unnecessarily negative", "makes me wonder whether this case will be handled fairly.", "The word "inflammatory" even comes to mind."), User:Guy Macon ("I also found the "questions" to be inappropriate."), User:Beyond My Ken ("its easy to get the impression that you are pre-judging the evidence", "can easily be read, again, as prejudicial", " I think you may have inadvertently tainted the outcome of the case") and User:Lourdes ("AGK, I second Beyond My Ken's assessment about this; in fact, I feel it may represent that you have already adjudged GS even before this particular stage is over. I would suggest you withdraw from the case or at least as the drafting representative, to avoid questions of impropriety cropping up. I'm not saying that this is why you did it, but the impression is quite negative.")

I'm not claiming they all want you to recuse (I linked to them so they are alerted about this conversation), but it seems clear that the trust in your impartiality in this case has been seriously damaged, and it would be best if you recused as arb (and drafting arb at that) from this case, and participated as a regular editor instead.

Fram (talk

) 09:24, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

When I read the above, my first though was "Hmmm. I did think that the questions were leading, but was it enough for me to support recusal? Not so sure about that one". So I reviewed Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman again. One thing that sort of jumped out at me was the following:

"Positing these possibilities is unpleasant, but necessary in examining the full dispute"

Really? Is it "necessary" to posit those possibilities in a section that is for listing the parties and scope?

Those who are subject to possible sanctions by arbcom have a right to expect that all arbs follow the normal procedures, both those codified in the written rules and the "this is how we usually do it, so a discussion should occur before doing it in a radically different way" de-facto rules.

Yes, it is indeed the job of arbs to ask pointed -- even accusatory -- questions. But not in the Drafter's statement as to parties and scope. The evidence has not been presented. The accused has not had a chance to respond. The venue is wrong. It is not a discussion area where if an arb writes something other arbs who are are participating have a convenient place to agree or disagree. It also isn't a venue where there is an open discussion about the behavior of all of the parties to the case. Instead it is one arb asking pointed questions about one named party on a page that should have simply listed the parties and defined the scope in a neutral way.

Your behavior gives the appearance that you have decided part of this case before the evidence has been posted and the accused have responded. The reality may very well be different, but that's the appearance. For this reason I call on you to recuse yourself in this case and in the future to make all of your communications about pending cases bland and neutral until you get to the right time and place to ask pointed questions and then to make a decision based upon the evidence before you. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:18, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

• Just a holding reply to your request: I had planned to not be online due to a busy few IRL days, but I will provide a fuller answer as soon as possible. Thanks in the meantime for your patience. Regards,
   ■
  16:46, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

• The complaint is that I have prejudged the case, or created that appearance. It is clear that drafting arbitrators ought to spell out their questions clearly. Drafts can't be effectively prepared if questions cannot be put to parties. The community has made clear its dissatisfaction with decisions being prepared in secret. And I was elected as an arbitrator whose record is one including clear, plain questions like the ones I asked you. It is also widely accepted that recusal requests are easily (and frequently) made during cases (when tensions are high), but should be denied without very good cause. Our only interaction has been while I've acted in capacity of arbitrator. For these reasons, I must decline your request for recusal.
   ■
  11:56, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-02

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News writers, editors and translators wish you a pleasant 2019 year.

Recent changes

• RelatedSites extension has been undeployed. It was used to create interwiki links on Wikivoyage, now handled by Wikidata. [24]
• MediaWiki logstash logging is moving to a new infrastructure. This is an ongoing deployment. [25]
• codesearch.wmflabs.org has been updated, with new and updated repositories and a new search options for code. [26]
• On several wikis, an account named "Edit filter" has been created on December 17 to perform some technical maintenance on AbuseFilter. This account has sysop rights but it's a system user and no human can use it. The account already existed on wikis where AbuseFilter can perform blocks, which are issued using this account. See T212268 for more information and future plans.

Problems

• In AbuseFilter, the "Throttle" action takes three parameters: count, period and groups. They must now strictly respect the requirements listed on mediawiki.org. A list of broken filters is on Phabricator. If you're familiar with AbuseFilter, please take a look and fix them. [27]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from January 9. It will be on all wikis from January 10 (calendar).

Meetings

• Search Platform Office Hours is rescheduled to January 9. Check the details for time and date.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration Request - Dispute Resolution - Please Help - 10 January 2019

Good Day,

This arbitration request is for the Hexagonal Water page. You will find my recent article in the edits. 1/9/19 as well as my previous comments requesting an accurate article. The user McSly continues to revert edits back to his 'scam' claim for this subject with minimal content, semi-relevant info. and dead links, and is ignoring a vast amount of research from leading experts that have verified the existence and importance of hexagonal water some of whom are cited in my article.

There are also numerous comments, that are requesting real info. for the page.

This user McSly, uses software to monitor and mass revert and control many pages, and is not an expert or well educated in this subject.

Please intervene. His article does not provide the information people are seeking when researching this topic.

Please review my edits to verify credibility, and ban McSly from this topic. He is clearly not unbiased and clearly not an expert or knowledgable in this field, and is doing Wiki and the public a great disservice.

He has

Thank you for your time with this important topic.

Jason TimeTells (talk) 15:05, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-03

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now use Google Translate in the content translation tool. [28][29]
• You can now add captions to files on Commons. Captions are short descriptions of the file. They can be translated to all languages we use. They can't use wikitext markup.
• Earlier a quoted HTML attribute had to be followed by a space. Now it doesn't. This means that some pages could look different when you save them even if you didn't edit that part of the text. [30][31]
• Templates with <templatestyles> could not show the difference between the live template and the sandbox version when they were tested. This has now been fixed. <templatestyles> has a new wrapper parameter now. You can use it for selectors like .mw-parser-output <wrapper parameter value> <selector from CSS page>. [32]

Problems

• When you see an edit in the recent changes feed or in the history of a page some of them have tags. Some tags are added automatically. You can also add tags manually. Tags for edits that have been added manually can be edited. This didn't work for a little while. This has now been fixed. [33]

Changes later this week

• You can move files from your wiki to Wikimedia Commons and keep the file history with the new FileExporter. It will be a beta feature on all wikis from 16 January. If you want to test it you activate it and check your wiki's configuration file.
• Users who could cause more damage to the wikis if someone took over their account have to have more secure passwords. This includes administrators and other user groups. They can't use passwords that are in a list of common passwords. Accounts with common passwords are easy to take over. The list of common passwords was made longer a few weeks ago and has a different error message. Some user groups have been added to those who can't use common passwords. This is to protect all accounts with user rights that could cause damage. [34]
• The AbuseFilter variable minor_edit has been removed. It was deprecated in 2016. Now you can't use it. You can fix the filters using it. You can find them if you use the search bar on Special:AbuseFilter.
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 15

17:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

	Happy Holidays! May your winter holidays be filled with joy, laughter and good health. Wishing you all the best in 2019 and beyond.

--Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 04:44, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi AGK - I'm a Stanford student working on a project on how to improve Wikipedia edit abuse filtering. Would you be willing to talk for 20-30 minutes about your experience working with Wikipedia over the years? Anything you can share would be incredibly helpful! You can contact me at [email protected]. Thank you and apologies if I misused your page in any way! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:681:4D00:8BA0:D871:9D55:1510:36F (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

GOCE 2018 Annual Report

Guild of Copy Editors 2018 Annual Report Our 2018 Annual Report is now ready for review. Highlights: Overview of Backlog-reduction progress; Summary of Drives, Blitzes, and the Requests page; Membership news and results of elections; Annual leaderboard; Plans for 2019. – Your project coordinators: Miniapolis, Baffle gab1978, Jonesey95, Reidgreg and Tdslk. To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

• A
  activity requirements
  for administrators.
• Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

• A
  WP:PERM
  , where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-06

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• It was easy to untick a box by accident in Special:Preferences. This will now be fixed. [35]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 February. It will be on all wikis from 7 February (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

AE appeal

I am notifying you on behalf of @Muffizainu: that they have made an appeal against a sanction you levied at the AE noticeboard. Strictly they should have made this notification themselves, but the refiling of requests due to defects of process is getting tiring. GoldenRing (talk) 08:54, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-08

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• When you thank someone on the mobile web you will now have two seconds to cancel the thank. This is in case you clicked on the thank button by accident. [36]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 February. It will be on all wikis from 21 February (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• There is a proposal to add a red link to mobile search results if there is no page with that name. This is how it works on desktop. You can leave feedback. [37]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:13, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.44.169.139 (talk) 08:05, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk to us about talking

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.

We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.

We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.

We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

1. First, sign up your group here.
2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
3. Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
   1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
   2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
   3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
   4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
   5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
4. Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.

Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.

You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you.

Trizek (WMF) 15:08, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-09

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• There is a new version of the iOS Wikipedia app. It has for example syntax highlighting and new toolbars to make it easier to write wikitext. It also has night mode, a find-on-page function and other things. You can give feedback and suggestions. [38]

Changes later this week

• When you look at your watchlist or the recent changes page you can use the new filters for edit review. There you can choose tags to filter different edits. Empty tags will no longer be shown. [39]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 February. It will be on all wikis from 28 February (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:17, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU^(T)

19:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)